I just found this web site the other day and find it interesting. With the threads about Rob Dibble and Mr. Tony (glad to see i am not the only dope who misses his national show) I thought I would toss this out there and see what becomes of it. It seems to me that the quality of ESPN has slowly gone down hill the last year or so. With a few exceptions.

Sportscenter- Down, the best combo, in my opinion, John Anderson and Scott Van Pelt are never together anymore the rest of them seem pretty interchangeable and don't do much for me. Will give them a thumbs up for hiring Fred Hickman, good to see that all African-American sports guys are not like Stuuyaa Booyaa, Screaming A and the Playmaker.

Football (NFL)- Down, Replacing Sterling Sharpe with "The Playmaker" please. Salsbury, I am sharping a stick for my eyes and ears as i type. And Bermans act is getting a little stale.

Football (College) - Up, Reese, Trev and Mark like them and the little snickeys on the sidelines great.

Basketball (NBA)- Down, (with the exception of Mike Terico) Replacing David Aldrich(not sure of spelling) with Screaming A Smith, not an upgrade.

Baseball- Up, John Kruk (though looked a little uncomfortable at first seemed to get better and more relaxed as the season went on), one slightly down, Herald Reynolds (not everything is great HR, being a little critical now and then is OK). Jeff Brantly, quickly becoming one of my favs. Now it they would just stop with the Outside the Lines show cutting into Baseball tonite i would be even happier.

"Original Programing"- Down (except PTI). ATH, Cold Pizza (except Thea who is easy on the eyes) way down. All the movies, if i have to see 3 one more time i am going to scream. and enough the whole Poker thing.

These opinions are just mine and everyone will probably disagree but what the heck that is what boards like this are for right? (sorry about any misspelled names, never was very good at it anyway)

I agree. I really don't watch Sportscenter any more, since they only show a couple of stats from each game. I love highlights, but I also like to see stats from the game, and I feel ESPNews gives me that. I really miss Kenny Mayne not doing Sportscenter, as I felt he was the best, not so much for recapping, but making it fun. Too many sponsored segments, like the Budweiser Hot Seat, and the stupid ass final exam. But that's just my opinion.

Sportscenter is almost unwatchable these days. It's almost a waste of breath to complain about the catchphrases; the anchors all have them, and they're not going away. The worst part of the show has to be all the ridiculous games and gimmicks they play. (See Fact or Fiction, Silver Spotlight, 4 Downs, Hot Seat, Hearsay, Final Exam, Chain Reaction, etc., etc., etc.)

Think back to the beginning of the OJ saga, the 89 earthquake, the Atlanta bombings... If any of these events happened today, we'd have to sit through a "Fact or Fiction" breaking them down: "Steven A, fact or fiction, OJ lopped his wife's head off?"

Speaking of Mr. Smith, I honestly don't know anybody who likes this guy. He's loud, obnoxious, and knows nothing outside basketball. (Last week, commenting about the Chargers-Jets game (sportscolumn.com) on the Sports Reporters: "You kick it on third down. If the kid misses it, at least he has a second chance." Ugh.) Despite this, now ESPN's giving him a daily show on the Deuce.

Then, we have to sit through months of commercials leading up to their original presentations. There's an old adage in the movie industry that states the worse a movie is, the more the studios spend to promote it. Same goes for ESPN. 3, Hustle, Tilt... just awful. Meanwhile, their EOE arm produces the best sports show on TV -- PTI -- and they never promote it.

I almost forgot about one of the worst things they did, They caved big time in canceling Playmakers. Like the show or not, it was no worse then what we read in the papers and see on tv, and because the NFL didn't like it, the four letter caved big time and didn't bring it back. It that is not being the NFL's b***h I don't know what is.

THe only thing i disagree with dave is when you said "the last year or so". I think ESPN, especially Sportscenter has been going downhill for a while now. Like sweetroll said they play too many stupid games. Plus this cuts into time from the highlights. It really pisses me off when there is an awesome game and then they show maybe 3 plays from that game. But they have plenty of time for their stupid games and their top 10 lists. I don't mind if they have so many games to go through that they can't show all the highlights but when you got nothing else to do show more highlights of games not add crappy stuff.

As for their lists, man they're awful. I don't really care what the top 10 Terrell Owens dances are, or the top 10 fumbles on a Saturday in Lambeau field when it's under 20 degrees. Then they have Chris Berman's stupid top 10 plays of the day or week or whatever and he'll say something like "number 5, the Colts and Patriots game". Do you not know the meaning of PLAY, a GAME is not a PLAY, also several different plays are not one play. If you're really going to do a top 10 plays then have some balls and pick 10 plays. Don't take 25 plays and try and stuff them into a top 10.

I don't even understand the 5:00 pm Sportscenter which airs before anything has happened. If they love doing their little games so much, why not do a game show instead of Sportscenter, or why not have an interview show like the old Up Close show.

I do agree that their college football and baseball crews are good. I do watch their Sunday Morning NFL sometimes too, not because I like them but just because they are better than the other shows that are just unwatchable.

I know i'm in the minority but I like Stephen A, not that he's knowaledgeable or insightful or anything, but his loud obnoxiousness makes me laugh, same with Michael Irvin. But yeah, they do need David Aldridge. What happened to him?

Originally posted by dave17257And Bermans act is getting a little stale.

Originally posted by QuezzyLike sweetroll said they play too many stupid games. Plus this cuts into time from the highlights. It really pisses me off when there is an awesome game and then they show maybe 3 plays from that game.

Amen to both. Berman's act has been stale for a loooong time. I think the problem is that Berman never throws a joke away. If he comes up with a gimmick, he just adds it to the roster. His little routines have gotten so awkward and time-consuming that I've noticed that ESPN will show 8 different plays in a game recap, but Berman can only talk about two of them. He'll start out with, "DAYLIGHT COME AND YOU GOTTA DELHOMME DROPS BACK AND IT'S INTERCEPTED! And then Ronde 'The' Barber 'Of Seville' runs it back and he goes WOOOOP! to the left and then WOOOOP! makes a cut and WOOOOP! past another offensive lineman and then WOOOOP! he has only one man to beat! And it's DAYLIGHT COME AND YOU GOTTA DELHOMME, and WOOOOP! he's in the clear and he COULD. GO. ALL. THE. WAY. WOOOOP!"

The only problem is that while he's been saying all this, the touchdown's already been scored, you've seen a kickoff, another touchdown, a fumble, a field goal, an injury and a referee mouthing words (about a key penalty) you cannot hear because Berman's droning on and on. Then, not having explained what ANY of those other plays or the penalty were, he says, "And the Jets win it in overtime with a field goal." HUH?

I know that part of the reason to watch Berman is because he "makes jokes," but I'm not watching Berman. I'm watching football. I want to watch one hour of football recap without paying $12/month to get HBO for "Inside the NFL." That's the whole point of NFL Primetime: that it's an hour of football rather than 3 minutes on the nightly news telecast. But at this point, you can watch that whole hour and not know what the hell happened in a third of those games, because we've got to make sure that the information doesn't get in the way of the jokes.

On another note, I'm convinced that Michael Irvin isn't even speaking English about 50% of the time. Are you telling me that there are NO other former football players, who want to be commentators, who are more articulate than this? I probably shouldn't complain. At least I recognize him. Better than their nameless "big shot" ex-players. There's a lot of unintentional comedy in learning "what a superstar needs to do" from someone who was probably a one-time Pro-Bowl tackle from the Cleveland Browns. Granted, they could sidestep these problems by hiring people who weren't football players but who also aren't dumber than a bag of hammers. But that might make too much sense.

It's a definite problem that Sportscenter has gotten away from the highlights. That's the show! Show me highlights, and bring back the stat screen after each game. There's no reason I should be watching all your dumb games during your flagship show. I will say, the production values on their Sunday night football games are incredible. I've never seen such a clear picture on my 12 year old TV. The announcers on said game, however...

Originally posted by dave17257I saw David Aldridge the other night on TNT (who does all their games in wonderfull High Def) doing sideline and insider information reporting for them.

Inside the NBA is one of the best sports shows on TV today... while on topic, it's everything that ESPN isn't nowadays. Ernie Johnson is the consumate professional, he doesn't have any stupid catchphrases, and he has good chemistry with the studio analysts. Barkley and Smith are actually interesting to listen to, and Sir Charles is actually FUNNY... not by using idiotic catchphrases all the time, but by being a smart ass. Not to mention the fact that they don't have to constantly yell over each other to get a point across, which is why I despise ESPN's NBA coverage nowadays. Adding Aldridge to the team just makes it better.

Back before the "decline" of ESPN, there was CNNSI and Fox Sports Net (back when they had Olbermann, Kevin Frazier, Myers, etc. doing a SC-esque show), and ESPN was still interesting to watch... but now it seems as if they're complacent and instead of actually providing interesting programming, they're all about "LOOK AT US WE HAVE 549 DIFFERENT OPINIONS ON RANDY MOSS BUTTOCKS 24/7." ESPN is just a huge forum for a bunch of columnists and loudmouthed ex-athletes to mouth off about the same damn issues all the damn time... not to mention the Sportscenter anchors getting over their catchphrases. It's all about storylines and pandering to the lowest common denominator in order to garner ratings nowadays, and it really is disappointing, because they're clearly the leading television source for sports information. Thank God for the internet, because honestly there's barely anything that I see on ESPN that I wouldn't read on a forum like this *cheap pop*.

But... yeah, I do agree with the aforementioned posters about ESPN's coverage of baseball and college football, and even college basketball. Although there is this one guy who I saw on College Gamenight the other night... he was on with Andy Katz, and he was also a writer on ESPN.com (I think). Anyways, instead of trying to provide actual information and analysis (like Katz, who at least has some good information), he kept making smart ass remarks and obvious analysis (something to the tune of "If you let other teams shoot 3's on you, then you're not going to win many games in the ACC." Brilliant.

SportsCenter on weekend mornings is still watchable, but on weeknights, it is hell. Where have the Bob Ley/Tom Mees actually play it straight duos gone? Why do they all have to do bad impressions of Berman, or worse, take Stuart Scott as their patron saint of stupidity. Instead of being a sports report as it was designed to be, SportsCenter now considers itself the story and everything else to just be an annoyance interrupting valuable time that could be used on stupid nicknames or idiotic crap.